How the assassination attempt on Trump unfolded

By Jeremy Herb and Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump’s rally speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening began just as it had at dozens of rallies previously – his attendees chanted “USA! USA!” and Trump clapped and pointed to faces in the crowd before taking the lectern.

About 150 yards to the north of the former president, a gunman was climbing onto the roof of a building outside the rally security perimeter. He had an AR-style weapon with him. Six minutes into the former president’s speech, the gunman took aim at Trump and squeezed the trigger.

What happened next was as miraculous as it was historic. The gunman, later identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired multiple shots, including one that Trump said skimmed his ear. Trump ducked to the ground. Five Secret Service agents rushed to the stage and covered the former president, as the pop-pop from another two additional bursts of gunfire rang out across the Butler Farm Show grounds.

Forty-three seconds after the first shot was fired, a Secret Service agent said the shooter was down. Trump, his ear and face bloodied, was brought to his feet. He raised his fist in a defiant and iconic pose to his supporters to let them know he was OK before agents took him off the stage and into his SUV.

At least three rally attendees were shot, one of whom was killed.

The incident is being investigated as an assassination attempt. It is the first time since 1981, when John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, that a current or former president has been shot at. It’s still too soon to determine what security failures may have occurred, such as how the shooter was able to get a clear line of sight to Trump.

Attendees have helped to fill in some details, including chaos in the immediate aftermath of the gunfire and suspicions about the gunman before he scaled the roof of the building just outside the rally site – transforming an ordinary political event into both an extraordinary moment in American politics and a deadly crime scene.

‘Security seemed tight’

Large crowds had flocked to the show grounds in the small city of Butler, some 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, to glimpse the former president at his final campaign rally before the Republican National Convention begins on Monday.

For weeks, the nation had been fixated on Trump’s opponent, and whether President Joe Biden’s candidacy could withstand the defections by members of his own party after a poor showing at the CNN presidential debate in June.

But by the time Trump arrived in Butler, attention was turning toward the convention in Milwaukee. Interest was high in his imminent announcement of a running mate, and he was less than a week from accepting his party’s nomination for president for the third consecutive election cycle.

Trump’s fans and voters in Butler – many of them donning the familiar red “Make America Great Again” hats – were looking forward to hearing from the man himself, braving the mid-July sun to wait for hours on a day with highs around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two and a half hours before Trump took the stage, the rally attendees watched a typical rally pre-show: There was a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the national anthem, sung by a 16-year-old teenager. Then a raft of the former president’s supporters – including two congressmen and a Senate candidate – spoke to warm up the crowd ahead of the rally headliner.

“He was very upbeat and excited about the rally because it was such a great turnout,” said Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania who saw Trump before the shooting.

McCormick was whisked into the venue through a private entrance manned by members of the Secret Service. There, someone waved a security wand around him to ensure he was not carrying a weapon.

“Security,” he said Sunday, “seemed tight.”

Other attendees had to go through magnetometers, or walk-through metal detectors, to get into the rally.

It was there that one person caught the attention of authorities: Crooks was spotted by local law enforcement, who thought he was acting suspiciously near the magnetometers, according to a senior law enforcement official. They put it out over their radio to keep an eye on him – and that information was passed to the Secret Service as well, according to the source.

Indeed, a local officer spotted Crooks before he began shooting but could not engage him, Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told CNN. The officer was searching the area after Butler Township officers received calls about a suspicious person outside the rally perimeter, Slupe said. Officers eventually discovered Crook was on the roof, and one local officer hoisted another up to peer over the ledge.

The shooter turned around, saw the officer and pointed his gun at him, Slupe said. The officer let go to “take cover” and save his own life.

‘This is a big, big, beautiful crowd’

Trump was initially scheduled to go on stage about 5 p.m. ET, but he was running late.

It wasn’t until 6:02 p.m. that Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” began blaring on the venue’s speakers and the former president walked up the short staircase on the left side of the makeshift rally stage.

Trump was wearing a white shirt without a tie, a dark navy suit and his signature red “Make American Great Again” hat.

As Greenwood’s “I’m proud to be an American” chorus played in the background, Trump circled the stage, clapping to the audience and pointing at various attendees seated both in front of him as well as in the grandstands behind him. Trump’s supporters waved “Trump 2024” signs that read “Crooked Joe You’re Fired!” on the back.

At 6:05 p.m., the song finished and Trump took to the lectern at the center of the stage. “USA! USA!” the attendees chanted.

“This is a big crowd — this is a big, big, beautiful crowd,” Trump said at the start of his speech.

As he did at every rally, Trump quickly began by criticizing Biden, warning about immigrants coming across US borders, and vowing to win Pennsylvania and “take back our country.”

He noted McCormick, the GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate, seated in front of him. “We’re gonna get a good senator,” Trump told the crowd, pointing to McCormick and saying he would bring him up on stage a little bit later.

Trump continued with his speech. “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter, do you?” he asked the crowd to cheers at 6:10 p.m., exactly 60 seconds before the shots began.

The former president turned his attention to a chart with border statistics displayed on a massive screen over his right shoulder offstage. “Take a look at that chart,” Trump said and pointed to his right – turning in the direction of the building north of him, where Crooks was preparing to take aim at the former president.

Crooks had climbed onto the flat rooftop of a light beige, single-story commercial building roughly 150 yards to the north of the rally stage. The open grass area where the rally was being held was encircled with a low chain-link fence. The building was just outside that fenced perimeter.

An eyewitness described being on a fence line and seeing a gunman moving “from roof to roof” just before the shooting. There were several buildings in the complex. The witness, Ben Macer, told CNN affiliate KDKA that he went to tell an officer just moments before the shooting began.

“When I turned around to go back to where I was, it was when the gunshots started, and then it was just chaos, and we all came running away, and that was that,” Macer said.

‘Get down, get down, get down!’

At 6:11 p.m., Trump was six minutes into his speech, looking to his right and looking at the jumbotron displaying immigration statistics. “You know that’s a little bit old — that chart, that chart’s a couple of months old,” Trump told the crowd.

“And if you want to really see something this sad,” Trump continued, “take a look at what happened…”

“Pop pop. Pop pop. Pop pop.”

Trump didn’t finish his sentence. The sounds of several rounds of gunfire rang out across the rally site. Trump grabbed his ear and took a step backward before ducking to the ground.

“Get down! Get down! Get down!” a male agent yelled at the former president. Five agents swarmed the stage and surrounded Trump on the floor.

“Pop, pop, pop, pop.” 

There was another round of gunshots, this time in staccato-like succession, five seconds after the first.

“What’re we doing, what’re we doing?” a female agent said, in audio that was picked up by Trump’s microphone.

Twelve seconds later, a third round of gunshots echoed through the show grounds.

“Ready.” “Move!” “Up!” “Go, go, go.” Several agents shouted short commands in succession while they remained on top of Trump. Agents in combat gear with long rifles walked onto the stage.

Forty-three seconds after the first shots were fired, the agents said the shooter was down. “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move?” several agents said.

“Are we clear?” asked a female agent.

“We’re clear, we’re clear, we’re clear,” agents said.

“Let’s move, let’s move,” said a male agent.

‘Wait, wait, wait’

Trump was then lifted to his feet by the agents around him. “Let me get my shoes on,” Trump said once he was standing.

“Hold on, your head is bloody,” one of the agents told him.

“Sir, we’ve got to move to the car, sir,” another agent said.

“Let me get my shoes,” Trump said again.

The agents prepared to move Trump offstage when he stopped them once more. “Wait, wait, wait,” the former president told them.

Trump lifted his head above the agents surrounding him and raised his fist in the air. “Fight!” Trump mouthed to the crowd three times, sparking loud cheers from attendees as they rose to their feet upon seeing that Trump was OK.

Trump and the five agents surrounding him walked in unison to the stairs at the left of the stage. Trump stopped once more to raise his fist, pumping it three times before he was carried down the stairs and into his SUV several feet away.

Trump raised his fist one last time as he got into the backseat of the vehicle.

‘It was all of a sudden just chaos’

As the first gunshots echoed across the show grounds, rallygoers cried out. Members of the crowd in the bleachers behind Trump ducked, mirroring the former president, their faces a mix of confusion and fear. When one final gunshot rang out, a loud scream pierced the air.

“It was all of a sudden just chaos,” said McCormick, an Army combat veteran, describing the moment the Secret Service converged on the former president, shielding Trump with their own bodies. Behind him, people were gathered around  a victim, trying to administer first aid until medical assistance could make its way through the dense crowd.

Adding to the chaos and confusion, a tractor parked on the other side of the stage let out a massive cloud of steam, apparently having been hit by a stray bullet.

Joseph Meyn, a surgeon from nearby Grove City, was filming Trump’s speech on his phone — it was his first Trump rally, he said — when he heard the gunshots and saw the former president get hit. He said that when he looked to see where the gunshots originated, he saw a man who had been shot in the head.

Meyn was sure the sound was gunfire, but many other attendees thought they were hearing fireworks. “Half the crowd was in shock, and the other half thought it was some type of weird joke,” Meyn said.

Rico Elmore, a former Pennsylvania legislative candidate who had spoken at the rally earlier, vaulted over a barrier to reach a wounded attendee, he later told CNN.

“All we know is shots were fired, and then I jumped over the barrier and put my hand on the guy’s head that was profusely bleeding,” he said, visibly shaken, his own white button-down shirt by that time stained with blood. Elmore didn’t know the man. “Just a stranger,” he said.

Meyn said he “helped carry the body of the man out of the stands.” 
 
“They took the body to the tent behind the bleachers,” he said later, while waiting to provide a witness statement to the FBI. Investigators wanted access to data on his phone, he said.

One rally attendee was killed by the shots, and another two were critically injured, law enforcement said later that evening.

The victim was identified on Sunday as Corey Comperatore. Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Comperatore was an “avid supporter of the former president” and was excited to be there with him in the community.

“Corey was a girl dad. Corey was a firefighter. Corey went to church every Sunday. Cory loved his community. Most especially, Cory loved his family,” Shapiro said.

‘I was shot with a bullet’

Trump was taken to a local hospital from the rally site, with the world watching on to learn whether he had been seriously hurt.

Thirty minutes after he was shot, the Secret Service communications chief posted on X that Trump was “safe,” and that the incident was under investigation. Soon after, Trump’s spokesman released a statement that the former president was “fine” and being checked out at a local medical facility.

As he so often does, Trump would fill in more details about what happened through his own social media.

“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening,” Trump posted on Truth Social at 8:42 p.m., thanking law enforcement for their quick response and expressing condolences for the attendee who was killed.

Biden was attending church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, when the shooting occurred.

After leaving church, the president was briefed on the attack on his predecessor. Biden then made an unscheduled stop at the local Rehoboth police department, where he denounced the “sick” shooting and said there was “no place in America for this kind of violence.”

“I have tried to get ahold of Donald,” Biden said. “He’s with his doctors.  They — apparently, he’s doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly, I hope, when I get back to the telephone.”

Biden and Trump did speak by phone later that evening.  A source briefed on the call said it was “good” and “short and respectful.”

Before Saturday’s call, the two men hadn’t spoken to each other directly in years.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Alayna Treene, Alejandra Jaramillo, Kate Sullivan, Emma Tucker and Bob Ortega contributed to this report.